William I. Zard (possibly not
his real name) was probably born in the early 1910's. Zard grew up hard
and became a petty criminal at an early age. He worked as a gun man for
several organized crime figures, an occupation that often landed him in
jail. By the late 1930's, Zard felt a failure, unable to master even mediocre
crimes. Alone in jail one evening, Zard had a flash of revelation. He became
convinced that crime was like a business and success would be achieved
by conducting that business is the truest sense of the word. Organization, planning, and
getting the advantage over the competition was key.

After being paroled, Zard
left the States and moved to Tibet, where he passed himself off as a supplicant
to the mystic arts. Under a Master Lama, Zard learned a variety of magicks,
including a mastery of illusions. Upon the completion of his studies, Zard
planned to return to the States to renew his life of crime. His first act
was to slay his faithful teacher, the Master Lama. Arriving in the States
in the mid-1940s, Zard's master plan was to craft a nom du crime, the Wizard,
and pull off the crime of his life: joining the Justice Society. So hardened
a criminal was Zard that he could not fathom that the JSA actually worked
for justice and assumed that they were simply an elite band of criminals staging a ruse for the authorities. He staged a series of crimes to
demonstrate his worthiness but after all of his schemes had been thwarted,
Zard was aghast to learn that his opponents really did work toward a society
without crime. Cornered by the heroes, the Wizard leaped into a vat of
acid, apparently to his death (All-Star Comics #34).

However, one of the
illusions that the Wizard learned best was to fake his own demise. Dumbstruck
by his experience with the JSA, the Wizard reasoned that it was best to
fight fire with fire. He helped organize a group of the JSA's adversaries
including Degaton, Vandal Savage, the Gambler, The Thinker and the Brain
Wave into a force called the Injustice Society. Together the group managed
to take over key portions of the United States Government until they were
fouled by the Justice Society. To add insult to injury, the Wizards escape
was tripped up by a youth group, the Junior JSA, and he was unceremoniously
carted off to jail (All-Star Comics #37).

No prison has held the Wizard
for long and upon his escape, he determined that the Injustice Society
must live again. This time he took a different tact and used career criminals
with few dreams of empire. He recruited the Icicle, the Fiddler, the Sportsmaster,
the Huntress, and the Harlequin. Together the new team managed to capture
most of the Justice Society but the Wizards plans were undone by the tactical
error of including the Harlequin. Not a true criminal, the Harlequin
betrayed the Injustice Society to aide her in winning the love of Green
Lantern and the JSA quickly rounded up the criminals and returned them
to prison (All-Star Comics #41).

In the late 1940's, the Wizard
was contacted by Colonel Future, a Superman foe bedeviled by the Man of
Steel's increased presence at home since the war ended. Deciding to try
magic where science failed, the Wizard and Colonel Future determined to
cast a spell that simply eradicated the Man of Steel from existence. As
the Wizard cast the spell, it did not have quite the effect he had intended.
Instead of erasing his existence, it simply caused reporter Clark Kent
to forget that he was Superman. For a year, however, it did seem that Superman
had ceased to exist. To Future's dismay, the battle against him was picked
up by aggressive journalist Clark Kent, leading police raids and using
his position in the journalism industry to attack crime in ways he never
had before. By this point, the Wizard and Colonel Future had had a falling
out and the Wizard was reduced to destitution. Kent married fellow reporter
Lois Lane and on their honeymoon, the new Mrs. Kent made the shocking discovery
that her husband was invulnerable, confirming her suspicions that she was
indeed married to Superman. Lois Kent sought out the Wizard, a vagrant
in a Metropolis city park. She convinced him that he could restore his
name to prominence if he proved that it was he that had banished the Man
of Steel. The only way he could do that, was to bring Superman back. In
a public ceremony arranged by the Daily Star, the Wizard methodically undid
his incantations from a year before and from an Superman insignia on the
ground the Man of Steel burst forth, collaring the wily Wizard. The Earth's
foremost super-hero was restored to land of the living and the Wizard was
restored to jail (Action #484).

The Wizard's activities during
the 1950's are largely a mystery. It is likely that he either spent them
in jail or traveled widely to hone his particular brand of magic. When
the JSA re-formed in the early 1960's, the Wizard renewed his life of crime
in earnest. For most of the following 20 years, the Wizard rarely worked
alone. In 1963, he joined fellow Injustice Society members The Fiddler
and the Icicle in a group known as the Crime Champions which also featured
villains from Earth-1. The group bedeviled the Justice League of America
and Justice Society of America on two worlds before finally being captured
(Justice League of America #21).

The Wizard's next recorded
encounter with the JSA occurred in the early 1970's, when he joined several
members of the Injustice Society in an escapade of crime lead by a writer
from Earth-Prime (Justice League of America #123-124). Shortly thereafter,
the Injustice Society, including the Wizard, assaulted the Justice Society
Headquarters, severely injuring Hourman and staging a crime wave that spanned
the globe. All members of the Injustice Society were apprehended in due
course (All-Star Comics #63-66).

The most recent defeat led
to a crisis in confidence for the Injustice Society. The villains became
convinced that they, due to age and psychology, had become so accustomed
to losing to the JSA that it was all they knew. To revitalize their efforts
required fresh blood, young villains with whom the Justice Society was
unfamiliar to give them the edge they needed. It as decided that a member
of the Society, namely the Wizard, would go to Earth-1 and recruit new
allies in the war for crime. With the aide of the Fiddler, the Wizard was
vibrated out of the Earth-2 dimension and into that of Earth-1. (Secret
Society of Super-Villains #12).

The trip to Earth-1 had an
unexpected side effect: the Wizard's power were reduced. By circumstances
never revealed, the Wizard fell in with a new group of super-villains,
the Secret Society of Super-Villains, organized by Darkseid. These
foes were to serve as a initial troops for Darkseid when he chose to assault
Earth but let by a clone of Paul Kirk, the Manhunter, the villains turned
on Darkseid and established themselves as an independent group (Secret
Society of Super-Villains #1-5). Seeing an opportunity, the Wizard
manufactured a "mysterious benefactor" who contacted noted con artist "Funky"
Flashman and endowed him with what appeared to be large sums of money.
The Secret Society then established themselves in a new base in San Francisco
and sought new recruits (Secret Society of Super-Villains #6-7).

The task the "mysterious benefactor" laid out for
the Secret Society was to acquire several artifacts known as The Sorcerer's
Treasures first encountered by Superman and Batman (World's Finest
#103). These artifacts, including a power glove, mystic gem and cloak of
invisibility, would then be used to allow the benefactor to reveal himself.
After tracking down the three treasures (and losing the fourth, a Dragon
Box), the Secret Society turned the treasures over to Flashman, who left
them in a airport locker for the benefactor. Unbeknownst to the Secret
Society, the Creeper had trailed Funky and waited patiently to nab the
Society's secret leader. The Creeper was astonished when the man picking
up the artifacts was none other than the Wizard (Secret Society of Super-Villains
#8-10).

The Wizard was booked and
jailed but soon escaped. Reacquiring the artifacts through theft, he barged
into Secret Society headquarters and disposed of Flashman by teleporting
him to the East Coast. He then announced his intentions to take leadership
of the Secret Society and lead them back to Earth-2 to defeat the Justice
Society of America once and for all. After an erroneous excursion to Earth-3,
the villains arrived on Earth-2 and set the Wizard's plan into motion.
This plan was to systematically attack and eliminate the weaker members
of the JSA, then liberate his colleagues and attack the powerful members
en masse as they lacked reinforcement. The plan met with some initial success
as the Secret Society captured the Atom, Dr. Mid-Nite and Mr. Terrific
(Secret Society of Super-Villains #11-15, Canceled Comics Cavalcade
#2).
The disappearance of their colleagues however soon alerted the JSA to the
plan and the Secret Society was forced to flee to Limbo to avoid capture
(revealed in Justice League of America #166).

The villains time in Limbo
was brief but not without consequences. When they emerged on Earth-1 some
months later, they found the link between their bodies and the souls had
weakened. To strengthen themselves, they needed new bodies and selected
the Justice League members as ideal targets. Attracting the attention of
the JLA to a archeological dig in Egypt, the Secret Society ambushed the
heroes and switched bodies with them. The Wizard happily took the body
of Superman, giving the mage power he had never known. As the villains
plotted to use their new bodies to dispose of the remaining Justice Leaguers,
the heroes deduced their plans and captured their possessed comrades. The
Wizard and the rest of the Secret Society were returned to their own bodied
and sentenced to lengthy prison terms (Justice League of America
#166-168).
The Wizard eventually escaped
prison and took up crime again with his old colleagues in the Crime Champions
but were again defeat by the combined might of the Justice League and Justice
Society
(Justice League of America #219-220). The fate of William Zard of
Earth-2 after Crisis is unrevealed.

Multiversity

Prior
Earth/Earth-0
= In the timeline the most since Crisis, The
Wizard formed a new group
in the mid-1980's to battle the Justice Society's heirs known as Infinity
Inc. Unable to resist an opportunity, the Wizard moved to Canada and organized some former colleagues
(Fiddler and the Shade) and some new ones (Icicle II, Artemis and Hazard)
into Injustice Unlimited as a villainous counterpoint. After a globe-trotting
ruckus between the criminals and the combined might of Infinity Inc. and
the Global Guardians, the Wizard seemingly stood triumphant. Fearing that
he might actually kill one of the heroes, the second generation Hourman
grabbed a giant hand from a clock tower and seemingly impaled the Wizard, killing him instantly (Infinity Inc.
#34-36). However, as before, the Wizard
has learned to fake his death. Using some newer magics he attempts to again
transport himself to Limbo but instead ended up in the land of Faeries,
a magical realm inhabited by characters from Fairy Tales. There, he learned
newer magics still and also regained a portion of his youth. Fortified
from this experience, he again launched an attack on Earth but was
thwarted by Infinity Inc. (Infinity Inc. #50) much as their forebears
had thwarted a similar invasion years before (All-Star Comics #38).
He recently emerged with a new appearance as part of group of magically
inclined super-villains. This group seeks to gather mystic artifacts for
an unknown purpose soon to be revealed (DCU Villains Secret Files #1).
The Wizard also formed yet another incarnation of the Injustice Society in
recent years (JSA Classified #5-7, JSA All-Stars #2-5)and
teamed-up with Amos Fortune and The Gambler (JSA Classified #14-16).

New Earth/Earth-0 = In the
current continuity of core earth, the Wizard has not emerged.